Preserving one's privacy while online is a goal that becomes increasingly difficult to achieve as more and more entities try to monitor online activities. For example, Internet advertising service providers, such as Adsense® and DoubleClick® operated by Google®, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., track visitor activity on webpages that feature advertisements of these service providers. Such tracking is often performed using techniques such as small images or pieces of code that are embedded into a webpage and that interact with a visitor's web browser to obtain information such as the Internet Protocol (“IP”) address of the computer receiving the embedded object, the time the object was viewed and for how long, the type of the browser. Additionally, previously set cookie values can provide information regarding the visitor's browsing history. Furthermore, the tracking entity can obtain additional information about the Internet user if the user utilizes services associated with the entity, such as an e-mail service. In addition, the tracked information can be analyzed to discover the user's location and identity.
The tracking entities often pool the data about the user to create a profile of the user, which they use for presenting targeted advertisements to the user. Generally, the user has no way to control the information that the tracking entities have compiled about him or her, and has no part in how this information is stored and protected. Further, in the United States, government regulation of how the user profile is protected is lax, creating a potential for widespread breaches of privacy and exposure of private information such as the user's browsing history, IP address, personal health information, preferences, location, and identity.
Existing technologies do not adequately address the threats to user privacy and security posed by such online tracking. For example, DuckDuckGo.com is an Internet search engine that does not track users performing the search and shows all users the same results for a given search term. While the search is secure, once the user starts accessing the search results, the user's activity can be monitored by tracking entities.
Likewise, HideMyAss!™ is a service that offers a pay-for-use web proxy that allows users to visit webpages without revealing their IP address. However, use of the service interferes with current page personalization code and does not allow targeted advertisements to be shown to users. In addition to depriving users of opportunities to see the advertisements, the service cannot profit on showing the advertisements and must charge users for the opportunity to use the services.
Similarly, the anonymizing service Tor™ (previously an acronym for “The Onion Router”) developed of late by the Tor Project Inc. of Walpole, Mass., conceals a user's IP address, location, and Internet activities by routing the user's Internet traffic through multiple nodes. Layered encryption is used at each of the nodes. The use of TOR has several complications. First, the Tor™ service requires an advanced knowledge of the applications being used or a willingness to make a change in the user's Web-browsing habits. For instance, using the Tor™ service requires the user to either configure each online application on his computing device to route traffic through the Tor™ service, or to use the Tor™ service Web-browser. Furthermore, some applications cannot be configured to be used with the Tor™ service, and thus a user may not be able to keep all Internet traffic private. Further, TOR is designed to be resist oversight by state actors, such as government entities, and has previously been used for conducting illegal activities, such as operation of the notorious Silk Road online black market and other dark web illegal websites. A user may be reluctant to utilize Tor™ due to the service's associations with illegal activity.
Finally, browser plug-ins, such as AdBlock™, prevent advertisements from being downloaded when a target webpage is displayed to the user. However, such services interfere with normal interactions of the user's web browser cookies and may negatively affect the user's Internet browsing experience.
Accordingly, there is a need for a way to prevent uncontrolled collection and distribution of private information of an Internet user without negatively affecting the user's web-browsing experience and ability to receive targeted advertising.